Opened by a thorough introduction into cutting edge LPG fuel metering technology for modern vehicles given by Prins Autogas on their newest Autogas direct injection and their award winning diesel-LPG dual fuel systems the participants of this year’s Global Autogas Summit could also get a closer look of the impressive line-up of Roush Cleantech. The participants learned that by the time the second presentation had ended, already over 200.000 boys and girls had been taken to school safely on propane school buses. With over 14.000 units of specially designed vehicles sold, Roush caters to the need of the professionally minded fleet operator.

Tom Armstrong is just that type of person. He is in charge of managing a large fleet of service vehicles on a nationwide scale. The duty profile of these vehicles indicates that usually do not return to base for refuelling after each day. Tom was happy to confirm the financial advantage of using propane service vehicles in his fleet. He pointed out how the fact that his fleet does not return home every night posed the main challenge in switching over to our clean and affordable fuel. The solution to this challenge was found by installing customised fuel systems for extended range and off site fuelling stations for flexibility where needed. According to his view, more vehicles will be eligible for conversion to Autogas as the infrastructure expands and improves its coverage making this fuel accessible to more of his company’s drivers.

For the first time Repsol presented the results of their project on direct injection which had been carried out with several companies, all experts in the automotive business. The contributions by the other companies, AVL, a developing house with a long standing track record with many automotive manufacturers of high reputation, and Delphi, a tier-1 supplier known for their advances in gasoline direct injection systems, may prove to be invaluable when promoting this new technology to the car manufacturers. It has the potential to give them an in-house, off-the-shelf Autogas solution which they could implement at will in their most modern platforms. The participants were thus able to catch a glimpse of future technologies for which the laying of the foundation had been co-funded by ourselves, the LPG industry.  

In the second half of the Summit a panel discussion composed of some presenters, representatives from industry and science gave the audience an opportunity to interact and push forward their questions. The political value of renewable propane was recognised just as the need to take control over the way Autogas is perceived by politicians and the general public. For this it was concluded that not only awareness campaigns but also a considerable marketing and advertising efforts are needed. The discussion was expertly led by Stuart Weidie and was concluded by an invitation to participate in the Korean Autogas Summit on January 29th in 2015.